WikiLeaks | File-sharing networks may hold the key WASHINGTON: WikiLeaks, condemned by the US government for posting secret data leaked by insiders, may have used music- and photo-sharing networks to obtain and publish classified documents, according to a computer security firm. Tiversa Inc, based in Pennsylvania, has evidence that WikiLeaks, which has said it does not know who provides it with information, may seek out secret data itself, using ''peer-to-peer'' networks, its chief executive, Robert Boback, said. The company, which has done investigative searches on behalf of US agencies including the FBI, said it discovered computers in Sweden were trolling through hard drives accessed from popular peer-to-peer networks such as LimeWire and Kazaa. The information obtained in those searches had later appeared on WikiLeaks, Mr Boback said. WikiLeaks bases its most important servers in Sweden. Advertisement Tiversa's claim was ''completely false in every regard'', said Mark Stephens, WikiLeaks's London lawyer. Bloomberg
25 Great Thinkers Every College Student Should Read By Donna Scott College is for expanding one’s intellectual horizons. Unfortunately, drinking and having fun, can distract from learning about history’s great thinkers. From Mark Twain to Confucius, an educated individual should posses some knowledge of certain philosophers, artists and thinkers. Western Philosophers Western universities understandably tend to focus on Western philosophers and thinkers. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Emerson was an influential figure in the first recognized American school of philosophical thought. Eastern Thinkers Eastern philosophies have proven influential on figures throughout history from Marco Polo to the Beatles. Confucius: A Chinese thinker and social philosopher, Confucius emphasized personal and institutional morality as well as justice and proper social relationships.Avicenna: This Persian mathematician is perhaps one of the most widely known Muslim philosophers. Statesman Polls show few people trust politicians.
Shock therapy for the NHS | Russell Razzaque | Independent Eagle Eye Blogs It’s called “the shock doctrine” and it originated in the University of Chicago over fifty years ago. It was designed by a group of economists headed by right wing ideologue Milton Friedman. They possessed an almost religious belief in an unregulated, laissez faire, free market utopia and their idea was simple; the best way to introduce whole system privatization and an unfettered free market in any arena is through chaos. Just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, these same economists travelled to the former communist bloc and advised Yeltsin that the system needed “shock therapy”. Modern history is littered with further examples of the application of the shock doctrine. Working within the NHS today, I have witnessed first hand the sheer confusion and, in some quarters, borderline panic, that has ensued as a result of the governments recent announcements. That is because they are supposed to be. Subjecting hospitals to the instability of a retendering process could be disastrous.
L'invisible omniprésence de l'analyse de données Quelle relation y a-t-il entre la prévision de la qualité d'un millésime viticole, le diagnostic médical, l'écriture de scénarios de films à succès, la fidélisation des clients d'une compagnie aérienne, et la lutte contre les discriminations raciales ? Ce sont, d'après ce livre, quelques uns des nombreux domaines qui ont été ou sont en train d'être transformés radicalement par les méthodes modernes d'analyse statistique et de traitement des données. L'auteur, Ian Ayres, est un représentant éminent d'une catégorie peu connue en France : c'est un juriste-statisticien. Professeur de droit et de gestion à l'Université de Yale, il travaille à l'interface du droit et de l'économétrie. Il est bien connu entre autres pour avoir mis en évidence dès les années 80, grâce à des analyses statistiques, un vaste phénomène de discrimination dans les ventes de voitures aux Etats-Unis : les femmes et les noirs se voyaient appliquer des tarifs supérieurs aux hommes blancs. Les causes d'une révolution
Youtube-gast: Jaap Stronks - hard//hoofd Jaap Stronks (1981) is mede-oprichter van Johnny Wonder Johnny Wonder, een strategisch bureau voor publieke en online communicatie. Hij kwam in zijn vroege twintigerjaren vanuit het oosten van het land naar Amsterdam om zijn grote ambities verder vorm te geven. Nu geeft hij advies, trainingen en leidde de internetstrategie van de laatste landelijke PvdA-verkiezingscampagne. Jaap ploegde voor hard//hoofd door Youtube en vond een vijftal filmpjes over de verschillende ontwikkelingen die we doormaken door het internet. Jaap: “Een mooi stukje historie. Jaap: “Rop Gonggrijp, oprichter van internetprovider XS4ALL en recent in het nieuws naar aanleiding van Wikileaks, is met reden kritisch over het gebruik van technische toepassingen door bedrijven en overheden die communicatievrijheid en privacy kunnen inperken. Jaap: “Anders dan Gonggrijp die zich afvraagt over de overheid het beste met ons voorheeft, komt Clay Shirky met een oplossing.
Guest Blog: A Year of Non-Fiction? by Emily « Nadia Lee :: Romance Writer - Blog I have been utterly and completely turned off reading fiction. I'm not sure why, but I just don't wanna. I've been to the library a couple of times since I got back home -- and god, I love the public libraries here in Singapore! -- and I always walk away empty-handed from the fiction section. I go to bookstores, and wander out again, not having spent a single, precious penny. Do you know what amount of monstrous effort that would normally require of me? I'm someone who usually reads upwards of 200 novels each year. Now I can't remember the last time I read a novel. It's depressing, is what it is. I watch some TV. I listen to a lot of podcasts from the BBC and the Economist -- I save a lot of time by not reading newspapers any more and using that time for stitching. So I'm thinking. An enforced year of reading only non-fiction. It might kill me. Do you think you could do it? Emily spent the past three years in the cold and wet, and is now basking in the tropical sun.
Freedom of Connection - Freedom of Expression: The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet by William Dutton, Anna Dopatka, Michael Hills, Ginette Law, Victoria Nash Over the first decade of the 21st Century, the Internet and its convergence with mobile communications has enabled greater access to information and communication resources. In 2010, nearly 2 billion people worldwide – over one-quarter of the world’s population – use the Internet. However, during the same period, defenders of digital rights have raised growing concerns over how legal and regulatory trends might be constraining online freedom of expression. Anecdotal accounts of the arrests of bloggers, the filtering of content, and the disconnection of users have sparked these concerns. However, they are reinforced by more systematic studies that provide empirical evidence of encroachments on freedom of expression, such as through the increased use of content filtering. This report provides a new perspective on the social and political dynamics behind these threats to expression.
I Love You Christopher Hitchens, You Irritating Bastard Christopher Hitchens, along with Robert Hughes and Spy magazine's Michèle Bennett, first started me imagining that I would like someday to be a journalist and critic. These jaundiced observers of the follies of the late 1980s and early 1990s had in common an elegant style of attack, and a positive relish in the peppering, roasting, carving and dishing up of sacred cows. Hughes, by far the most scholarly of the three, went on to produce magnificent books and documentaries (and to survive the terrible injuries he sustained in a super-hairy car crash in 1999); Bennett's true identity has never been revealed, but I hope he or she is thriving, and writing still. I like to imagine I've been enjoying the Bennett oeuvre all along, under some other august byline. But Christopher Hitchens! In the Feb. 1995 issue of Vanity Fair, a memorable Hitchens piece described the aftermath of the Channel 4 broadcast of Hell's Angel, a blistering half-hour takedown of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Really!
Join a New Video Project in Defense of WikiLeaks January 28th, 2011 10:23 PM By Tangerine Bolen Hello World-Wide Wiki Citizens! The following is a brief description of this project with instructions on how to participate and submit your video clips. Project Overview This is a simple and direct open letter to the US government about Wikileaks and Julian Assange spoken on video by people from around the world. The objective of this project is two-fold. Revised Video Clip Participation Instructions 1. A-C: Read paragraph 1D-G: Read paragraph 2H-K: Read paragraph 3L-O: Read paragraph 4P-S: Read paragraph 5T-V: Read paragraph 6W-Z: Read paragraph 7 First state your name and the country in which you reside, then “speak” your portion of the letter. Tips for being on video: • Make sure you are looking directly at the camera. • Try to speak (not read) the letter. • Put your heart into this! • Just be you. 2. The goal here is to function as a powerful reminder of the critical need for governments to do the RIGHT thing. Submission Instructions 1. 2. A.
The World’s Top 20 Public Intellectuals Rankings are an inherently dangerous business. Whether offering a hierarchy of countries, cities, or colleges, any such list -- at least any such list worth compiling -- is likely to generate a fair amount of debate. In the last issue, when we asked readers to vote for their picks of the world’s top public intellectuals, we imagined many people would want to make their opinions known. Such an outpouring reveals something unique about the power of the men and women we chose to rank. No one spread the word as effectively as the man who tops the list. 1. An Islamic scholar with a global network of millions of followers, Gülen is both revered and reviled in his native Turkey. 2. More than 30 years ago, Yunus loaned several dozen poor entrepreneurs in his native Bangladesh a total of $27. 3. 4. Part political pundit, part literary celebrity, Pamuk is the foremost chronicler of Turkey’s difficult dance between East and West. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.
EFF: FBI may have committed more than 40K intelligence violations since 9/11 A new report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation analyzes more than 2,500 pages' worth of FBI documents extracted using Freedom of Information Act litigation and finds disturbing, system-wide violations of civil liberties on a scale that is far beyond anything reported to date: Using documents obtained through EFF's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, the report finds: • Evidence of delays of 2.5 years, on average, between the occurrence of a violation and its eventual reporting to the Intelligence Oversight Board • Reports of serious misconduct by FBI agents including lying in declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas, and accessing password-protected files without a warrant • Indications that the FBI may have committed upwards of 40,000 possible intelligence violations in the 9 years since 9/11 Release: EFF Uncovers Widespread FBI Intelligence Violations Report: Patterns of Misconduct: FBI Intelligence Violations from 2001 - 2008
Julian Assange: 'How do you attack an organisation? You attack its leadership' | Media | The Observer Julian Assange awakes to talk, from the nap he has stolen in an armchair at the Norfolk country house where he is staying. He has been up all night disseminating, on his WikiLeaks site, US State Department cables and documents relevant to the momentous events unfolding in Egypt, and they make remarkable reading. The American diplomats writing the cables leaked to Assange report many of the reasons for the Egyptian uprising: torture of political dissidents, even common criminals, to obtain confessions; widespread repression and fear; and – of special interest to anyone who follows WikiLeaks – the increasingly important role of internet activism, opposition blogging and communication with democratic movements within and without the country over the web. Tomorrow a book he considers to be an attack on him will be published by journalists with whom he once closely collaborated at the Guardian, sister newspaper to the Observer. This finding was riveting for two reasons.
Without Internet, Egyptians find new ways to get online By Nancy Gohring and Robert McMillan January 28, 2011 08:35 PM ET IDG News Service - "When countries block, we evolve," an activist with the group We Rebuild wrote in a Twitter message Friday. That's just what many Egyptians have been doing this week, as groups like We Rebuild scramble to keep the country connected to the outside world, turning to landline telephones, fax machines and even ham radio to keep information flowing in and out of the country. Although one Internet service provider -- Noor Group -- remains in operation, Egypt's government abruptly ordered the rest of the country's ISPs to shut down their services just after midnight local time Thursday. "[B]asically, there are three ways of getting information out right now -- get access to the Noor ISP (which has about 8 percent of the market), use a land line to call someone, or use dial-up," Jillian York, a researcher with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, said via e-mail. Reprinted with permission from IDG.net.
Egypt Flips Internet Kill Switch. Will the U.S.? What can an undemocratic government to do to control its people? If tear gas and rubber bullets don't work, take away their Twitter and Facebook access, of course. And if the people still don't fall into line, cut off their Internet and mobile phone access entirely. That's exactly what the Egyptian government did today when confronted with citizenry taking to the streets and demanding regime change. The legislation was first introduced last summer by Sens. The proposal calls for the Department of Homeland Security to establish and maintain a list of systems or assets that constitute critical cyber-infrastructure. Reports of Egypt's grand disconnection came first from James Cowie of Renesys, a New Hampshire-based firm that tracks Internet Traffic. "Every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world."